JavaScript QuickStart: Next Steps

Learn more about JavaScript and begin incorporating sctips into your Web pages.

by DEVX Staff

Jan 1, 2000

etting Your Hands Dirty
So, now you have a basic understanding of JavaScript and what it can do. If you're reading this, you've probably decided that you want to learn more about JavaScript and begin incorporating scripts into your Web pages.

The best way to begin working with JavaScript is to adapt existing scripts for your own use. Along the way, you'll begin to get a feel for the rhythm and flow of the language and eventuallyif you're interestedbegin writing your own scripts from scratch.

Explore a Script
When you first start to work with scripts, you'll probably be editing and adapting existing ones, rather than creating them from scratch.

Now that you understand some of the basic grammar rules in a JavaScript script, let's take a look at a script again. We'll look at each line as if it were a sentence and think about what it is "saying."

This script puts a little glowing dot in front of a menu choice when the reader puts the cursor over that menu choice. Click on the line in the code to see what it does. The explanations appear in a new, separate browser window. You can look at the script in action, the script code, and the descriptions of each portion of the script at the same time.

The second part of the script goes into the body of the file within different elements of the page.

This is what the HTML body that uses this script looks like. Click on any line for an explanation of what it does. The explanations appear in a new separate browser window. You can look at the script in action, the script code, and the descriptions of each portion of the script at the same time.